Leaving Haven (4 page)

“That's a hard thing,” Alice said, “that would strain any marriage. But I thought you'd decided to give it up.”

“I did—we did.” Georgia squeezed her eyes shut. Yes, she'd given up on pills and injections and inseminations and timed intercourse and ultrasounds and doctor visits and all the other things that had come to dominate her life over the last years. But she hadn't given up the hope that a miracle might still occur. That baby,
her baby,
was a tiny bud out there somewhere in the universe, and someday that bud would find her and bloom. She
knew
it. But she couldn't tell anyone that—not John, not her sisters, not Alice.

“So it's an adjustment,” Alice said. “You're both getting used to the idea that you're not going to have another baby.” Alice herself had never wanted another baby, but had been very supportive throughout Georgia's struggles. “Still, nothing you've said makes it sound like John is having an affair.”

Alice bent back over the drawer, turned the screwdriver with a deft twist of her wrist, and smiled in satisfaction as the drawer front popped into place. “There.” She looked up at Georgia and smiled. “All better now.”

I hope so,
Georgia thought. She smiled at Alice and said, “Thanks.”

B
UT
A
FEW
weeks after that chicken kebab dinner, Georgia came home from the grocery store one Saturday and noticed a plate of oatmeal butterscotch cookies on the kitchen counter.

“Amelia dropped these off while you were out,” John said, munching a cookie. His hair was tousled in the way Georgia loved. He always wore his hair cropped short, even though his ears stuck out slightly, which gave him a funny, almost little boy look at times. He was so handsome in the traditional sense—high cheekbones, straight nose, heavy-lidded brown eyes—that his less-than-perfect ears made him even more appealing, his one vulnerability.

“That was nice,” Georgia said. She dropped the grocery bags she carried onto the kitchen counter. “What's the occasion?”

“No occasion.”

Georgia contemplated this. John loved oatmeal cookies with butterscotch chips, but Georgia almost never made them. They were far too sweet for her taste, and even Liza turned up her pert nose at them because she wanted
chocolate
. Georgia agreed. If you were going to make a cookie involving masses of white and brown sugar, the least you could do was balance it with a good bittersweet chocolate chip.

“Is something going on between you and Amelia?” She was surprised that the words came out of her mouth—a thought, a vapor, condensing into something solid and real.

“What?! She baked a plate of cookies, Georgia.” John laughed. “And
Amelia,
of all people. Aside from the fact that I'm her boss, she's about twenty-six. And she has those things in your ears that make gigantic holes. What do you call them? Gauges.” He shuddered. For a man who was definitely on the high-testosterone end of the gender spectrum, John was strangely squeamish about certain things—knives, piercings, blood.

“I can't even look at her ears,” he said. “I make her wrap a bandanna around her head in the kitchen.”

“I don't know.” Georgia studied his face. “I've had an odd feeling lately.”

“You have a lot of odd feelings,” John said. He reached out to straighten the tissue-paper collage of a giant turtle that Liza had made four years ago, in third grade. It hung crookedly on the refrigerator. The fact that he wouldn't look at her made Georgia even more suspicious. “Go by what people
do,
not what they say,” her sister Polly always said. And what John was doing was avoiding her eyes, because Georgia knew he could not lie to her face. She knew him too well.

“So is this an odd feeling I need to pay attention to?” Georgia said.

“Don't be silly, Georgie,” he said. He turned to look at her and smiled that dimpled smile, those dark eyes crinkling up at the corners. It was a sexy smile, the smile of a man aware of his own power to attract, to appease, to confuse. He came over and put both arms around her, pulled her to him. “Amelia is too skinny,” he murmured, brushing his lips against her neck. His hands slid down over her hips and he pressed his hips urgently against her own. “Where's Liza?”

“At Emilie's.” Georgia could smell the sweet butterscotch on his breath. “They're practicing some dance routine for the talent show at school.”

“Good,” John said. “Then she'll be gone awhile.”

He kissed her neck, above her collarbone, where he knew she liked to be kissed, and slid his hands down from her shoulders to cup her breasts with his hands. And before she knew it they were having sex right there, on the white-and-black Marmoleum of the kitchen floor. It wasn't until afterward—after they'd put their clothes back on and John had gone downstairs into his study and she'd put all the groceries away—that Georgia realized he'd never actually
denied
he was having an affair.

She took the phone into the bedroom, closed the door, sat down on the edge of the bed, and called Polly.

“I think John is having an affair,” she said.

“With who?” Polly said.

“Amelia. The sous chef at the restaurant.”

“Why do you think that?”

“Because he let her eat his chicken kebab right off his plate and she made him oatmeal butterscotch chip cookies today.”

“All your evidence has to do with food?”

“John owns a restaurant,” Georgia says. “His life is food.”

“I know he owns a restaurant,” Polly said, with some irritation. “I still don't see how you get from chicken kebabs and cookies to an affair.”

“Because John is so
particular
about his food,” Georgia said. “You know how when he cooks something he has to get it exactly right, and then do the whole fancy presentation on the plate, and then sit down with the right wine? He doesn't like people poaching from his plate once he's done all that.”

“John never struck me as that anal,” Polly said.

“He's not generally,” Georgia said. “He's just that way about food. Which in some ways is probably what makes him such a good chef.”

“Does he let
you
poach from his plate?”

“Well, yes, me or Liza. But that's it. Just me, Liza, and now Amelia. Don't you think that's suspicious?”

Polly met this last with a sigh. “Not really, Georgie. I honestly don't get the whole food thing. Everyone in my house eats off everybody else's plate all the time. I'm just happy if no one's poaching from the dog dish.”

Even though Georgia was the oldest, Polly was confident and independent in a way Georgia had never been. But then Polly had left home at sixteen to attend boarding school and then had headed off to college on the West Coast, while Georgia took care of Chessy and helped their father and stayed within a two-hour drive for college so she could come home at least once a month. Polly was the organized one, the competent one, the smart one, while she, Georgia, was the caretaking one, the empathetic one, the somewhat anxious one. And Chessy, their youngest sister, was the
interesting
one, the fearless one, the talented one who everyone knew was going to do something spectacular one day.

Georgia heard the rustling of paper and an expletive on the other end of the line. “Some little rug rat dumped a half-eaten shrimp in the wastebasket in my bedroom. Can you believe it? No wonder the entire second floor smells like the beach.”

“It was probably Teddy. He hates shrimp.” Teddy was Polly's youngest child, and Georgia's favorite. Polly had had four kids—bam, bam, bam, bam, one right after the other, as easily as you'd sneeze after snorting pepper. Georgia envied Polly her fertility. She craved a boy like Teddy, all dimples and messy kisses.

“I
know
it was Teddy.” Georgia heard more rustling and footsteps as Polly took care of the offending shrimp. “Listen, Georgie. Forget the food. Is John acting weird in any other way?”

“Not really. I talked to Alice, and she thinks I have nothing to worry about.”

“Are you having sex?”

Georgia's lips were still swollen from John's kisses. “Well, yes.” She flushed at the memory. “We had sex on the kitchen floor about an hour ago.”

“Oh, God, spare me the details. I hope you got out the Swiffer afterward. Listen, if John is having sex with you on the kitchen floor in the middle of the afternoon—after you've been married
nineteen years
or however long it is—your marriage is fine.”

“Seventeen years,” Georgia said. “And John always wants to have sex.” It was true. He'd even wanted her when she was hugely pregnant with Liza, reveling in her round belly and blooming breasts. “I like knowing I did that to you,” he would say, his hands on her swollen stomach. It was crude, but also kind of hot.

“With
you,
” Polly said. She paused. “Teddy! Teddy, come here right this instant!” Georgia heard the patter of Teddy's feet down the hallway, followed by Polly's firm footsteps. “Listen, Georgie, I've got to go. But I don't think John is having an affair. When was your last hormone shot? Those things alter your brain chemistry, you know.”

“I haven't done shots in two months. We decided to stop all that on my fortieth birthday. I told you.”

“I know. I'm sorry.
I'm sorry
. I forgot.” Polly waited a beat. “I know it's hard to give up something you've dreamed about for so long.”

“It's okay.” Georgia repeated what everyone said when they heard about her struggles: “I have Liza.” Georgia
was
lucky; she knew it. But it didn't stop the wanting.

“You never know,” Polly said. “Maybe you'll be exactly like that cliché, when people give up trying and suddenly get pregnant. Wouldn't it be incredible if you found out in a few weeks you got pregnant having sex with John on the kitchen floor today? You could name the baby Marmoleum to commemorate its conception.”

“Please, Pol,” Georgia said. “Don't.”

“I'm sorry,” Polly said. “I shouldn't have said that. It wasn't funny.”

“Okay. It's just that sometimes you and your houseful of children are hard to take.”

“I know. I just know how badly you want a baby, so I want it for you. I'd give you one of my eggs if I could.”

“You can't,” Georgia said. “Because of your thyroid. And your eggs are too old.”

“Chessy would give you an egg. She's under thirty.”

Georgia had thought about this. Chessy—with her petite frame and brown hair and green eyes—resembled Georgia much more than wiry blond Polly did. “A donor egg may get you the healthy baby you want,” Georgia's doctor had said. Georgia had nodded, but the idea of a donor egg from a stranger seemed so, well,
strange
.

“Do you think she would? I did mention it once to John, as kind of a hypothetical. He's always said he would never adopt or use donor eggs—he has that macho streak, you know? He wants a baby that's a known quantity—no surprises
.
He just rolled his eyes when I said something about a donor egg from Chessy, but then he rolls his eyes whenever I mention Chessy.”

“Right,” Polly said. “I know.”

Georgia wondered if their inability to have a baby was what was bothering John, if he was struggling to come to terms with the fact that he would never have another child, or a son. Even though he had never, with so much as a look, indicated that he was disappointed about it, she often felt she had failed him in some primal way.

“
Teddy!
” This time Polly's voice had such an air of urgency and authority that even Georgia, on the other end of the line, froze where she sat.

“Don't you dare move,” Polly said. Georgia heard her footsteps creak across the hardwood floor, followed by fumbling and a curse. “Oh, my God,” Polly said. “He's wearing nothing but Spiderman underpants and has covered himself, literally, in Astroglide. He must have found it in my nightstand. He's so slippery I can't pick him up to get him in the bathtub. I've got to go, Georgie. I'll talk to you later. And don't worry!”

The thought of Teddy—his plump belly and impish grin and blond cowlick—made Georgia's arms ache with longing for a little guy of her own.

Maybe,
she told herself.
Maybe, I could try once more. I'll call Chessy
.

3

Alice

A Month Earlier, May 2012

A
lice and Duncan lay side by side in their bed, both of them on their backs, staring at the ceiling. The bed had belonged to Duncan's Scottish grandmother, the first piece of furniture she'd purchased in the New World, made of oak with scalloped carving on the headboard. Alice had loved the bed when they were first married, not even minding that it was an old-fashioned full-size and not a queen because it meant she and Duncan had to sleep tangled together or curled around each other, always in contact, always connected. Now, though, the bed felt small, suffocating, with Alice pressed against the edge on her side and Duncan on his.